PlayStation Strikes Back!
E60: PlayStation acquires Bungie.
Good morning gamers. Last week Sony Interactive Entertainment announced that Bungie will be joining the PlayStation family in a $3.6 Billion deal. Bungie is known for creating the Destiny and Halo franchises. The deal will allow Bungie to accelerate their vision of creating “generation-spanning entertainment” and they will remain completely independent while they continue to publish their own games.
Destiny 2’s future was a concern for fans on other platforms but Bungie reiterated that their community will remain on multiple platforms and expand to new ones. Bungie will also retain full control of the Destiny universe.
Jim Ryan, the president and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment says that “We should absolutely expect more. We are by no means done. With PlayStation, we have a long way to go. We have many more moves to make”.
Discord’s partnership with PlayStation kicked off this week as players are now able to connect their PSN and Discord accounts. PlayStation4 and PlayStation 5 games will now show as activity on Discord, which seems like just the beginning.
The State of the Nintendo
According to Nintendo’s recently released financial results, the Nintendo Switch family is now the fastest home console to sell 100 million units (current lifetime sales are sitting at 103.54m) beating out the Nintendo Wii and the PlayStation 4. In terms of handheld consoles, they’re still 50 million short of beating the record set by the Nintendo DS and 15 million away from surpassing the Game Boy line.
Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa said that the “Switch is just in the middle of its lifecycle and the momentum going into this year [2022] is good”.
Nintendo recently released Pokémon Legends: Arceus game has already sold more than 6.5 million units in its first week and they’ve also released a ton of amazing games in 2021 including (but not limited to) Metroid Dread, Monster Hunter Rise, Mario Party Superstars and Pokémon Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl.
Some of Nintendo’s best-selling first party games include,
Mario Kart 8 - 43.35m units
Animal Crossing: New Horizons - 37.62m units
Super Smash Bros Ultimate - 27.40 million units
Zelda Breath of the Wild - 25.80m units
Pokémon Shield and Sword: 23.90m units
Looking into the future, Nintendo has a pretty stacked lineup of upcoming games including Bayonetta 3, Kirby and the Forgotten Land, The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild sequel and a rumoured Mario Kart 9 game.
Esports Corner
Ubisoft Esports
Ubisoft has announced that they’ve founded their own esports division. They’ve decided to take internal control of their “competitive gaming activities” rather than relying on third-party organizers to help them better shape the future of esports and competitive gaming at Ubisoft. They will continue to support competitions for Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege, Brawlhalla, Trackmania and For Honor, but are now also trying to “broaden their portfolio” by having their development teams focus on building esport programs within their upcoming games.
A Market for Esport Coaches
Metafy, a platform that provides video game coaching services has raised $25m in a Series A funding round. Users are able to purchase coaching sessions for popular games with major esports scenes as well as for casino games and sports betting. Metafy’s co-founder and CEO Josh Fabian said that the money will be used to help scale the platform, hire more coaches, make industry acquisitions and $1 million will go towards tournaments and gaming-community events.
A Busy Month for Esports
IEM Katowice 2022 (CS:GO) | $1M prize pool, starting February 15th with the Grand Finals on February 27th.
HCS North American Regionals (Halo Infinite) | $125K prize pool, offline event with no live audience.
The Six Invitational 2022 (R6 Siege) | $3M expected prize pool, will feature all the major R6 teams starting February 8th.
Valorant Champions Tour 2022: NA Stage 1 Challengers | $200K prize pool with the main event starting on February 11th. Top 8 teams qualify for Playoffs in March.
Gaming Roundup
Grand Theft Auto VI has been confirmed to be in active development from Rockstar Games. The release is expected between April 2023 and March 2024.
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has reportedly reopened talks about starring in a Call of Duty movie after initial talks in 2015 came to a standstill.
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League has reportedly been delayed until 2023 due to development challenges at Rocksteady Studios.
Gran Turismo 7 revealed an in-depth look at their modes and features. The game is set to launch on the PS4 and PS5 on March 4th.
Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson has now said that EA is not “driving hard” on NFT projects after initially saying it’s an important part of EA’s future.
MLB The Show 22 will be launching on April 5th with cross-platform and cross-progression on PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch.
Phil Spencer, the CEO of Microsoft Gaming will be the recipient of the AIAS Lifetime Achievement Award at the 25th annual D.I.C.E. Awards ceremony.
Akihiro Suzuki, the producer of Dynasty Warriors says his development team discussed different IPs but he would like to make a Star Wars Musou game.
Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson says Skate 4 is coming and it will give players “the ability to create your own content and put it into that ecosystem”.
Game Review - Dying Light 2: Stay Human
Dying Light 2: Stay Human is perfect for gamers who played Dying Light: The Following and want more. Techland definitely listened to the community and fans should expect years of support and post-launch content just like the previous game.
The gameplay is very fun starting with the parkour that has been improved upon from Dying Light: The Following. The story is unique starting with the characters who are great as they allow you to make your own choices, unlike the previous game. The cons include the combat system taking a step backwards and the open world having some fillers.
The game’s day one patch included more than 1,000 bug fixes. Techland will continue to address the bugs and improve the game across different platforms so it may be better to wait before giving it a try yourself.
We give Dying Light 2: Stay Human a score of B+.
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